If the approach of Cape Town’s Day Zero continues on the trajectory it has maintained for the past two months‚ it will arrive around March 3. That’s six weeks away‚ and about six weeks earlier than the City of Cape Town’s latest projection of April 12. Why the discrepancy? Because the city council keeps doing the same sum and expecting a different result. Simply put‚ it divides the amount of water left in our dams by the amount Cape Town is supposed to be using each day and uses the result to count forward. But since mayor Patricia de Lille started uttering those now well-worn phrases — "new normal"‚ "a well-run city does not run out of water" and the rest — Cape Town has used far more water than it is "supposed" to have. And now that the hottest time of year has arrived‚ evaporation from dams is accelerating the approach of taps’ death rattle. Last Thursday‚ De Lille finally conceded what had been obvious to everyone else for months: "Day Zero is now likely." The next day the DA ca...
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